Understanding Power: The Indispensible Chomsky

down an Iranian civilian airliner in a commercial air corridor off the coast of Iran with 290 people killed—out of a need to prove the viability of its high-tech missile system, according to U.S. Navy Commander David Carlson, who was monitoring the event from a nearby ship and said that he “wondered aloud in disbelief.”66 None of these incidents wa

the downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 by the Russians in 1983—that was presented as sure proof that the Russians were the worst barbarians since Attila the Hun, and that we therefore had to install missiles in Germany, and step up the war against Nicaragua, and so on.

some of the top investigative reporters in the country are very conscious of the way the system works and play it like a violin, just looking for moments when they can sneak stories through. Some of the best-known of them are even more cynical about the media than I am, actually—but they just find ways to work within the system,

Operation MONGOOSE. Right after the Bay of Pigs invasion attempt failed, Kennedy launched a major terrorist operation against Cuba [beginning November 30, 1961]. It was huge—I think it had a $50 million-a-year budget (that’s known);

Because control over the government shifts back and forth between various elite groupings in our society, whichever segment of the business community happens to control the government at a particular time reflects only part of an elite political spectrum, within which there are sometimes tactical disagreements. What the “Propaganda Model” in fact p

what the New York Times recently referred to in a book review as the “traditional Jeffersonian role of the media as a counter-weight to government”—in other words, a cantankerous, obstinate, ubiquitous press, which must be suffered by those in authority in order to preserve the right of the people to know, and to help the population assert meaningf

If you ask people, “Do you want new taxes?” they’ll say no; but if you ask them, “Do you want better medical services?” they’ll say yes.

So in that little comment Gaddis was getting near the main story: he was saying, post-war American decisions on rearmament and détente have been keyed to domestic economic considerations—but then he drops it, and we go back to talking about “containment” again.

the United States had invasion plans for October 1962; the Missile Crisis was in October 1962. In fact, American naval and military units were already being deployed for an invasion before the beginning of the Missile Crisis;